She slept peacefully on her little picnic blanket while I got the garden planted (finally!). Occasionally, she'd get up and wander to the edge, and then plop back down and sleep again.
And how is the garden, you ask? Its great! It feels very organized this year. I'm doing the "square foot gardening" idea, where you chart out the garden into plots that are one square foot in size, and you plant certain things within those plots. I have thirty square-foot plots in which to plant this year.
I also splurged and bought myself some little gardening signs to label the plots. Best idea ever, because now I will actually remember what I planted where. (Being someone who is forgetting lots of things lately, I also charted out the plots in my little gardening notebook, just in case some squirrel decides to steal my garden signs or something.) And then, just to be sure, I took pictures to document where everything is.
This whole row is spinach.
Here we have two side-by-side plots of zucchini, followed by two plots of cucumber, and the last two are called "Jelly Bean tomatoes." (The picture on the package looks like cherry tomatoes. I'll probably have to cage these plants later this summer.)
What, it's too early to plant tomatoes outside, you say? Ah, who cares. I have lots of seeds. Let's just see if they make it. I like to garden dangerously.
Next rows, we have two squares of green beans, two squares of carrots, and two squares of heirloom Brandywine tomatoes. (See reference re: tomatoes, above.)
And the last rows I planted are two squares of snow peas, followed by a single square of okra.
The square of okra is just for me. Fried okra in summer is magical.
We also went out and bought WAY too many pansies. The goal was to plant them in this little strip of soil by the driveway. Last year it was supposed to be a "butterfly garden" but it ended up being a terrible weed fest that we feared would harbor mice in the winter. So we dug it all up and planted pansies instead.
That is, until we ran out of room and had to plant the rest by the lightpost.
I love the white ones because they have tiny purple stripes in the middle.
My big daffodils have not sprouted this year, but I'd forgotten that I'd planted some miniature daffodils (I think I got them from my old work when someone had them as a desk plant and were about to throw them out.) Sure enough, they bloomed!
Aren't they cute?
The big daffodils are close to blooming but aren't quite there yet. All the color makes me so happy though. I didn't realize how much I dislike winter until we got our 47 feet of snow this year. I am SO VERY DONE with winter and seeing flowers in my yard and seeds in my garden has lifted my mood tremendously.
The most amazing new growth in my yard has actually been in the herb planter that I'd abandoned late last Fall. I was convinced that I'd killed everything in there, and I was all prepared to throw it out, get new dirt, and start over. And then I looked at the planter today. Lo and behold, the thyme plant is growing again!
Its perennial! Who knew?!
The oregano is perennial too, and there are some chives growing back behind the thyme plant! So amazing.
It does appear that I've killed the basil and cilantro plants, but that's ok, because I'll plant basil in the real garden this time, and just let the thyme overtake that whole planter.
Spring is here, folks! Go plant something!
